Gross Motor Activities

What are gross motor skills?

Gross motor (physical) skills are those which require whole body movement and which involve the large (core stabilising) muscles of the body to perform everyday functions, such as standing and walking, running and jumping, and sitting upright at the table. They also includes eye-hand coordination skills such as ball skills (throwing, catching, kicking) as well as riding a bike or a scooter and swimming.

Why are gross motor skills important?

Gross motor skills are important to enable children to perform every day functions, such as walking and running, playground skills (e.g. climbing) and sporting skills (e.g. catching, throwing and hitting a ball with a bat). However, these are crucial for everyday self care skills like dressing (where you need to be able to stand on one leg to put your leg into a pant leg without falling over) and climbing into and out of a car or even getting into and out of bed.

Gross motor abilities also have an influence on other everyday functions. For example, a child’s ability to maintain appropriate table top posture (upper body support) will affect their ability to participate in fine motor skills (e.g. writing, drawing and cutting) and sitting upright to attend to class instruction, which then impacts on their academic learning. Gross motor skills impact on your endurance to cope with a full day of school (sitting upright at a desk, moving between classrooms, carrying your heavy school bag). They also impacts your ability to navigate your environment (e.g. walking around classroom items such as a desk, up a sloped playground hill or to get on and off a moving escalator). Without fair gross motor skills, a child will struggle with many day to day tasks such as a eating, packing away their toys, and getting onto and off the toilet or potty.

Gross Motor Activities for Home

• 40 ideas for gross motor activities to do with kids at home

• Great for kids who love to move and those learning their milestones

Gross Motor/Physical Activity for Classroom and Home

• OT Mom website for all things OT and activities for home and school to develop motor skills

• PDF Printouts for activities to do at desk and on school mat during circle time

Incorporating Physical Activity into the Schools

• We all know that kids these days are not getting enough physical activity during their day per American Heart Association requirements

• They are getting scheduled time for physical activity at recess, PE and occasionally during movement breaks in class but not all of the activity being done is in the category of moderate to vigorous physical activity

• Recommended moderate to vigorous physical activity is recommended for 60 minutes per day every day for children 6-19 years old

• Link to website has current research about impacts of physical activity on attention/focus, academic performance, happiness, etc.